


hidden in the snow

by jswoon2



Series: he stole her [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, Genderswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-22 04:57:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13756788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jswoon2/pseuds/jswoon2
Summary: Joanna names the direwolf, much to Ygritte’s chagrin. He wanted to kill the thing, maybe make a few meals out of it and a fur coat for his lady, but Joanna left him and all his warmth for the animal.Ghost she calls it.





	hidden in the snow

**Author's Note:**

> So it's been well over a year since I've last added to this but I've gotten some sporadic comments and kudos so I decided to come back. Did a bit of a fandom switch, explaining my absence. Just trying to jog my creativity a little!
> 
> Not beta'd, only proofread. Comments and kudos are lovely!

Joanna names the direwolf, much to Ygritte’s chagrin. He wanted to kill the thing, maybe make a few meals out of it and a fur coat for his lady, but Joanna left him and all his warmth for the animal.

_ Ghost _ she calls it.

“If they’re rare,” she argues, naked but chilly and too stubborn to put clothes back on in the midst of an argument, “then we shouldn’t kill him. We can use him to hunt with.” Luckily, she has proven smart enough not to get too close. But even being in the same cave is too close for Ygritte.

The direwolf is young. Although, the size of its teeth is probably a more important factor than its age.

“Or we could just kill it instead,” Ygritte insists.

The direwolf has made itself comfortable in their little hideaway cave. It looks relaxed but Ygritte knows that it’s listening closely. An animal doesn’t live this far out beyond the Wall into the wild without being smart. It’s kill or be killed and Ygritte certainly isn’t going to die today. Despite that, the direwolf doesn’t seem to consider either one of them much of a threat.

He imagines it wouldn’t be so willing to show its neck otherwise.

“Let’s keep him. Ghost can be valuable to us,” Joanna replies with a slight pout. She cocks her head to the side, blocking Ghost from Ygritte’s view. “Let’s try to keep him,” she continues, reaching out to hold his hands in hers. He falters for a moment. Feeling encouraged, she holds their hands against her chest, peering up at him through her eyelashes. “Please?”

Ygritte closes his eyes and mentally groans. His fingers flexed as they’re intertwined with hers. She’s so warm.

“The moment it tries anything, I’m killing it,” he says, finalizing things.

The smile on her face is simply radiant, perhaps the warmest, brightest thing Ygritte has seen. She throws her arms around his shoulders, pressing her naked body flush against his.  _ Flirting, being playful _ , he thinks. The best kind of manipulator, a woman who can use her body.

Joanna kisses him several times in quick succession on the lips as her fingers comb his hair. “You won’t regret it,” she assures him.

Ygritte hums, tipping his head back while he weighs his options. The kneeler doesn’t protest as she usually does when his hands begin to wander, even in all her nakedness. Instead, she gives him a wicked grin when his hands fall to her ass. “If the beast stays, we stay,” he bargains belatedly.

“You already agreed!” she protests, hitting him weakly on the chest.

“Well, I’ve changed my terms. It wouldn’t be fun if I didn’t get anything out of keeping that thing here. I quite imagine that direwolf would be a delicacy,” Ygritte replies. He’s usually a bit more of a thinker but it’s hard to be so focused when he has a naked woman in his arms showering him with kisses.

A Joanna who wants something is a Joanna Ygritte would like to see more often. He can tell she’s getting used to him. Of course, she wants to go home still. Ygritte isn’t mad about that, he’s trying to be understanding although he doesn’t actually understand why. She’s a bastard and if what Mace has told him is correct, they aren’t treated in high favor in the north. He thought he might be saving her.

Petulant, she huffs but she concedes. Ygritte thought she would give up more of a fight than that. She hasn’t had a problem with that so far.

“Will I ever go back?” she asks him, seemingly for permission. He isn’t sure where her change of mood came from, why it suddenly seems like she’s looking to Ygritte for her choices. Being free is the best part of living beyond the Wall.

Ygritte wants to teach her that. One day she’ll realize she won’t need him to have safe passage back home. She’ll be strong enough to simply do it.

Instead, he kisses her soundly until he thinks she’s forgotten about the topic.

 

* * *

 

Joanna finds a slight comfort in keeping Ghost around. She’s clearly out of her element here and it seems that the added factor of an animal lingering their temporary home has Ygritte feeling the same.

Direwolves are honorable though. The sigil of her house, the representation of the bravery she wishes she has. So Ghost stays. The way it looked at her made her feel like they had a connection, as if it felt as lonely as she does. A rash decision to make, maybe, but she and Ygritte come to a compromise that gives her most of what she wants.

Mace and his camp only plan on moving further up north.

Perhaps it is a good thing that she agreed to stay. She wouldn’t be able to find her way home when more than half of the land is snow and no guide to take her where she wants to be.

Ghost leaves in the morning long enough for Ygritte to question whether or not the animal only used the cave to rest for the night but returns by noontime with a snowy owl between its jaw. It drops the bloody animal at Joanna’s feet, sits back on its haunches, and seems to bow its head as if expecting a prize for its hunt.

Joanna pets the beast’s large head with hesitation.

“I think it’s for us,” she tells Ygritte. Ghost has found cleaning off his paws much more interesting than Joanna inspecting the carcass carefully.

Ygritte huffs. “I suppose it does have its uses.”

They cook the bird over a meager fire from whatever scraps Ygritte managed to find. The wood is dry and he almost can’t get a fire to light until Joanna takes over. A little flame is better than none so lunch is eaten with a slight delay.

A fire to keep warm suddenly seems less important when Ygritte lays Joanna out on top of their clothes and keeps between her thighs. She’s still a bit unfamiliar with the kissing he does there but she knows it feels good. He holds her hips down with his hands to keep her from squirming and just relentlessly drags his tongue in circles tasting her wetness until her thighs are shaking.

Ygritte kisses her after, asking for permission to finally fuck her. She lets him just as he lets her drag her nails down his back and cry out loudly into his ear the first time he pushes inside her.

She’s heard Robb and Theon argue so many times over the size of their cocks, who’s bigger, but both unwilling to show the other. A pissing match, her father would call it. Truly, she wishes she could tell the boys now that the size does not matter. It’s how a man uses it and surely, Ygritte knows what his strengths are.

That’s not to say he’s not big, but really, who is Joanna to have any comparisons?

Joanna feels it, a fullness in her abdomen as he begins to fuck her harder, but it’s the good kind. The certain that has her clinging to him and whimpering requests for more.

He doesn’t spill inside her. They can’t risk bringing a child into the world this far out in the wild. Instead, he strokes his cock until he comes onto her stomach and her breasts. In apology for dirtying her skin, he licks it all way and gives her a taste of it on his tongue.

Carefully in his arms, he cradles her, spooning them together while their heartbeats begin to calm down. His hands find her chest, his favorite part about her body, Joanna is figuring out. She barely has to encourage him before he’s kissing her between her breasts, his cock starting to harden between them.

“Let’s rest,” she says, trying to entice him to stop, despite the wetness between her legs and the throbbing of her clit. She wants him to keep touching him even though she’s tired. It would be a wonderful discovery if somehow they were able to do both.

“Yes, m’lady,” he tells her in that same playful tone. He reaches to drag the articles of clothing they’re not laying on top of to drape over their bodies.

They’re a bit gross, sweaty, and covered in bodily fluids. A bath is in order and yet her eyes are falling shut with Ygritte stroking her hair, the lingering burn of his beard tingling on his skin on all the places he kissed.

She might pull him closer instead of pushing him away. They’ll have a short nap, then they’ll bathe.

They will.

 

* * *

 

Clearly Ghost prefers Joanna much more than Ygritte, not that the wildling minds. They’re both a bit equally wary of each other. He’s never raised a blade to Ghost and Ghost keeps mostly to himself.

Joanna tries to train Ghost like a dog which is met with amusing results in Ygritte’s eyes. Ghost doesn’t really like following commands. He mostly operates in the way that he wants. Ygritte could have told Joanna that much. Ghost might have a name, more than what could be said about most animals, but Ghost is still a wild animal.

“Will you show us where you found the owl?” she asks Ghost stubbornly, holding the remnant of a bone up to the direwolf’s nose. The other bones that had been left over Ghost already gnawed on beyond recognition.

Ghost tries to snatch the bone out from Joanna’s grasp. She’s lucky it misses her fingers.

Realizing the bone isn’t for him, Ghost lays down. Joanna no longer has the direwolf’s attention. Ygritte laughs at her. It was a cute attempt to expect anything else.

“I’m trying!” she tells him, her cheeks flushed.

“Even if we went back, I’m sure the rest of that owl’s flock is gone by now,” Ygritte says not to be mean.

Joanna rests her head on her knees, drawing a circle on the ground with the bone she’s holding. Sadly, at that. “I suppose. We’ll need more food soon though and we’ve looked everywhere.”

“That just means we’ll have to leave soon,” Ygritte says. “Perhaps later we’ll be able to come back if we get enough resources. The spring provides enough water for now, though food is our problem. And shelter.”

“Winter-” she starts to say.

“Not Winterfell. We won’t be going there,” Ygritte reminds her. He secretly wonders how much longer she’ll keep asking him.

Joanna nods, accepting. She thought that would be the answer. It would just be too easy if she gave up trying. One day she might be able to convince him. Ygritte so far has done a good job convincing her to like him. The Stark in her doesn’t want to admit that she likes him for any other reason than that.

 

* * *

 

Orell’s hawk comes looking for them and Ghost tries to eat it. 

“I knew you were smart,” she congratulates Ghost perhaps a bit too happily. The direwolf responds much like the puppies at the kennel. Its tail wags happily, thumping steadily on the ground creating an echoing metronome in the cave. Ygritte has never seen the thing look so friendly before.

Joanna has the magic touch of some sort.

“You can tell Mance this is where we’re staying,” Ygritte tells the bird.

Ygritte is smart to not mention how  _ long _ they plan to stay. It almost goes without saying that findings resources with just the two of them will be hard. It’s an unknown variable how long it will be before they take up all the resources in the area and are forced to move on.

The hawk tries to nip at Ghost one more time prior leaving. The direwolf is a tad faster, dodging the attack just in time to get its teeth barely into the bird’s claws. It doesn’t stick around much longer, fearing Joanna armed with her knife.

Color Ygritte impressed.

“We’ll have to look for another place to hide soon,” Ygritte says once Orell’s pet is long gone. “I don’t want Mance won’t take kindly to us leaving without permission. He wouldn’t force us to stay either, but he’s not going to risk losing track of where you are. Those kneelers will want all the information out of you they can get their hands on.”

“But they haven’t told me anything,” Joanna replies.

He shakes his head. “Maybe not, but all that you’ve seen. Mance won’t let you go back to Winterfell.”

Joanna surprises herself by crying.

Comfortingly, Ygritte gathers her into the circle of his arms. She tries to hold in the tears for as long as possible, until she can’t even see through the watery fog. His shoulder is great for catching her tears. She’s tried so hard to stay stern and hard since she’s been taken away. A good cry is what she needs.

As reality returns, she feels lighter.

“Thank you,” she says, sniffling.

_ You don’t have to thank me _ , he thinks. He says, “You’re welcome.”

 

* * *

 

Ygritte wants to have sex. More specifically, he wants to have sex without Ghost staring at him.

“Then don’t look,” Joanna says, as if it’s easy, as if their guest doesn’t bother her and likely so if her climbing on top of him is any indication. Ygritte’s praise has done wonders for Joanna’s confidence. She chases what she wants and right now she wants her man inside her.

Her warmth surrounding him is a good distracter. 

Joanna rides him with inexperience, paced unevenly. Ygritte is a simple man though. She’s quick to learn and Ygritte is a willing teacher. He holds her hips tighter, basks in her pleasured whimpers, and bucks his hips up.

She asks for more, and he gives it.

 

* * *

 

It’s not exactly a comfy cave but Joanna dreams of a barren town with a voice that calls to her, telling her to come closer. The voice is eerie and yet, she finds herself unable to walk away. The great tree with the crow in it gets bigger and bigger until Ygritte shakes her awake from her dream. 

She tells Ygritte about it and isn’t the least bit surprised when he calls her crazy.

“If this is an excuse just for me to take you back, I can’t,” he tells her. Ygritte isn’t sure what town town this but its description is familiar. There just isn’t many town's out here that she could be confusing it for. But he can’t take her there.

“We can’t even check?” Joanna asks.

“And tell me again to make sure I heard you clearly,” Ygritte says, “a bird told you to go here?”

She nods. “But it wasn’t just a bird. It was a crow. And it told me that if I went there I’d learn the truth.”

“About what though? What truth?” 

Joanna bites her lip, her hand buried deep into Ghost’s fur like an anchor. “I don’t know, but if we went the crow could tell me! It just reached out to me.”

Ygritte holds his patience. “We can’t just go if a magical crow tells you to. Maybe it was just a dream. It probably was.” He crouches down onto her level where she sits on the ground. “A bad dream, probably, was all it was. You said it was only the first time it’s happened?”

“It was.”

“Then it was likely nothing,” Ygritte concludes. Talk of magic and talking animals is beyond his comfort levels of comprehension.

“One day,” she continues to push, “if Mance comes looking for me, will we go?”

“We will,” Ygritte promises. Something that even surprises himself.


End file.
